Last year, seniors at Jasper County s public high schools

Question

Last year, seniors at Jasper County’s public high schools performed worse on standardized college-entrance exams than their peers at Nesbit County’s public high schools. In recent years, more and more Jasper County residents have been enrolling their children in private high schools, where the teacher-to-student ratio is traditionally lower than in public schools, and enrollment in Jasper County’s public high schools has dwindled as a result.

Based only on the information above, parents residing in Jasper County and concerned about their child’s academic future should pursue which of the following courses of action?
 
(A) Enroll their child in one of Jasper County’s public schools.
(B) Stay in Jasper County and enroll their child in a private school.
(C) Provide home schooling for their child rather than enrolling the child in either a public or private school.
(D) Move away from Jasper County and enroll their child in a private school.
(E) Move to Nesbit County and enroll their child in that county’s public schools.

OE:

The correct response is (E). Comparatively high test scores among Nesbit County’s senior class constitues some evidence that Nesbit County’s public schools provide a better education than those in Jasper County. The argument for enrolling a child in a private school rather than a public school is weaker because it depends on the additional, unsubstantiated assumption that a low teacher-to-student ratio results in a higher-quality education. Moreover, current school-enrollment trends in Jasper County schools suggest that public schools are becoming more appealing — and private schools less appealing — in terms of teacher-to-student ratio.

OA:

IanStewart · Accepted Answer

Where is this question from? Based on the passage, we have the following information:

* Test scores are higher at Nesbit Public Schools than at Jasper Public Schools. We have no information about test scores at private schools. So, we have some reason to think that Nesbit Public Schools are better than Jasper Public Schools, but no reason at all to think that Nesbit public schools are better than private schools in either Jasper or Nesbit;

* Jasper parents have increasingly *chosen* to spend money to send their children to Jasper private schools. That's evidence that, at least in the opinion of parents in Jasper, private schools there are preferable to public schools there;

* The population of students in Jasper public schools has been changing: Jasper parents are increasingly sending their children to private schools. There is certainly the possibility of sample bias here; perhaps the most promising students are the ones being sent to private schools, and Jasper Public School test scores are lower than those in Nesbit because the remaining students at Jasper public schools are worse, and not because the education in Jasper is worse;

* With the decrease in students in Jasper public schools, there is the possibility that the student-teacher ratio there is substantially better than elsewhere. The stem suggests (though does not state outright) that this is one factor determining the quality of education.

There just is not enough information to give a good answer here; you can, depending on how you look at the stem, provide a justification for many different education choices for the hypothetical student in the question. Indeed, the equivalence that the OE uses to justify answer E (higher test scores = better education) is precisely the type of overly simplistic conclusion that GMAT CR questions are often asking you to identify and weaken. I really don't like this question.

ezhilkumarank · Answer

With the given stimulus only option B and E are relevant.

If we consider B to be the best option, then the student to teacher ratio in the county's private school will raise and it might impact the standard of education. Option E sounds good since the performance of the students in Nesbit County’s public high school is not worse than Jasper County’s public high schools.

mdurlak · Answer

Interesting, I chose B. I did because I formed my own assumption that private school, and the lower student-teacher ratio means better education, even though that is not clearly stated.

I like this question — it helped me to understand when I'm making my own assumptions vs. reading the passage's facts.

satt1709 · Answer

I would say E as the public schools in Jasper are already performing badly. And we know that Nesbit is doing good in comparison to Jasper. Now we also know that the T/S ratio in Jasper's private schools is growing bad and thus we come to a following trend
Private Jasper <= Public Jasper < Public Nesbit

Thus  E

KapTeacherEli · Answer

Seconded--this question doesn't look right. Unfortunately, the original post on this thread was nearly two years ago, so I doubt we'll get a source for this problem to confirm it's validity.

ChrisLele · Answer

Going to chime in on this one as well: This is clearly not a valid question, either in terms of the logical succinctness of the answer or the quality of the answer choices. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that this type of question is Uncritical Reasoning. The contention that two things are the same, despite obvious differences, is a logical fallacy often employed to write critical reasoning questions. Here, this logical fallacy is the reasoning behind the answer.

To illustrate: we cannot assume that what works for Nesbit-ians will work for Jasper residents. There could be multiple factors beyond public and private schooling as to why Nesbit students do better on standardized exams. Socioeconomic factors are but one consideration. Just writing this, I feel like I am writing an essay for the Argument Task of the AWA. You know, the one which is filled with unwarranted assumptions. Just like this question. If only there were a prison in which to lock up these faulty questions

.

nemesis23 · Answer

Since, it has not been mentioned that the move of Jasper county students from public to private high schools in their own county has helped them academically. Thus, B is cancelled out & we are left with E.

thevenus · Answer

+1 for E but i don't know how far it is a pragmatic solution.

saminex · Answer

This is an awful question. nothing about it can lead the test taker to pick an answer with any type of confidence.

J123456789123 · Answer

I thought this question was A. I thought that the main reason that kids were performing well was because of the low teacher/students ratio. Then parents decided to move their kids to private schools because the "low teacher/student "ratio was a factor for the good scores. So since the public schools had now a low teacher/student ratio public schools in Jasper was the best option instead of moving into another town and pay for school. Need help with this type of question thanks.

sanghar · Answer

Agree with all your points, and the question is weird. But the stem does say, just on the basis of this information what should a parent do. So that provides bounds on using what you can reason.

devikeerthansr · Answer

Only B and E are relevant here
(B) Stay in Jasper County and enroll their child in a private school. 
(E) Move to Nesbit County and enroll their child in that county’s public schools.

E is better than B because Nesbit's performance is already good.

chesstitans · Answer

the source of this question is from a textbook in a finance class. The alternative source is a thread from facebook. Even though the purpose of this question is to demonstrate the critical thinking skill, this question is a non-gmat question.

GAngstA · Answer

what makes option C wrong?
here my reasoning, JPS student perform relatively bad than APS, but it doesn't mean they had good result that can leds to option C. Personally this question has very loose ends that can led to many conclusion.

NamaySharma · Answer

Hey. I only had one doubt. The question stem mentions the lower student-to-teacher ratio as one of the reasons for pvt school enrollments. It also mentions that enrollment in a public school in Jasper has dwindled. Wouldn't this result in a lower student-to-teacher ratio in Jasper as well? Thus wouldn't option A be a valid choice to make? Just a little confused in this aspect. Any help would be great.

Last year, seniors at Jasper County s public high schools

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Last year, seniors at Jasper County s public high schools

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